Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Thursday said the government may no longer wait for a Legislative Council vote on the non-binding motion on the proposed co-location arrangement for the West Kowloon terminus of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link before starting the three-step implementation process. The motion, tabled by the government, is redundant in essence. It merely serves the purpose of demonstrating Lam's respect for, as well as her sincerity to cooperate with, the legislature. Now the unremitting filibustering stunts against the motion, staged by opposition members in the LegCo over the past two days, have unambiguously made it clear they are determined to derail the joint checkpoint setup, no matter what. Lam has every reason to hedge her bets.

With the Express Rail Link having been slated for operation in the third quarter of next year, the special administrative region government is feeling increasing time pressure to ready the checkpoint arrangement sooner rather than later. Launching the three-step process right away seems not only a logical move but the only option left for the government.

The campaign against the joint checkpoint arrangement has been launched under the guise of upholding the law. But the practice of Hong Kong leasing out a confined space inside the terminus complex to mainland authorities for the purpose of conducting immigration procedures is constitutionally sound. It will also meet all legal requirements after the SAR government completes the three-step process for its implementation.

The antagonism essentially boils down to "fears" the joint checkpoint arrangement would set a precedent for the central government to weaken the rights the SAR enjoys within its high degree of autonomy under the "one country, two systems" principle. But if members of the opposition camp are honest enough they themselves hardly believe their own story. Beijing needs no precedent at all. The central government has overall jurisdiction over the Hong Kong SAR, as General Secretary Xi Jinping just reiterated during the recently concluded 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Any attempt to play up such unwarranted "fears" is futile. Hong Kong people are well aware that residents in this city enjoyed much more rights and freedom in the past 20 years than at any time during its more than one and half a centuries of colonial rule. The central government has never felt the need to retract the rights and freedoms it has promised Hong Kong under the "one country, two systems" policy. What is more reassuring to Hong Kong people is that upholding "one country, two systems" has been included in the 14-point fundamental principles of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which forms part of the Party's guiding principles.

Scaremongering won't work against an economically and legally sound project such as the co-location arrangement whose viability has been proven multiple times elsewhere.

(HK Edition 10/27/2017 page12)